


Five times Liv failed to express herself, and one time May spoke her language

by muggle95



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, POV Olivia Octavius, Unreliable Narrator, which happens offscreen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28063761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muggle95/pseuds/muggle95
Summary: They were friends until they weren't. It must be May's fault somehow, because Liv was still trying.(a series of snapshots in the complicated friendship between Olivia Octavius and May Reilly Parker)
Relationships: Olivia Octavius & May Parker (Spider-Man)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	1. May's Invention

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Satchelfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satchelfoot/gifts).



“You can interact with it if you want,” May explained, pouring the white fluid into a wide plastic basin. “It's perfectly safe.”

“Thanks, but I think I'll practice with my robot arms if you don't mind. I have to demonstrate them next week, and this invention of yours is unknown enough to be dangerous,” Liv answered, mock serious in her concern about the fluid May was already poking with her bare hands.

“Sure, go get them,” May agreed.

Liv returned from the third floor, wheeling her robotic arms in on a cart. Using the joysticks, she carefully prodded the non-newtonian fluid with one of the claws. It resisted firmly for a moment, before flowing around the metal. She lifted the claw back up, watching the fluid stretch, stringlike, away from the basin, connecting them to each other. She leaned on the joystick slightly harder, inadvertently pulling the arm back that much faster, and the basin jolted toward her when the fluid suddenly held firm instead of stretching further.

May caught the basin before it could fall off the table. “Easy there. Give it a minute to release,” she instructed. She put her hand over Liv's, guiding the claw back towards the basin where they held it steady for a moment, until the fluid relaxed and finally dripped off. “It's pretty grippy when you pull on it,” May explained needlessly.

“I noticed,” Liv replied, only a little sarcastic. She pulled her cart away from May's demonstration, inspecting the claw for damage, just in case. “Tell me more about it?”

“Well I said it's safe to handle, which it is,” May raised a pointed eyebrow at Liv's robot, softening the expression with a fond grin. “It's biodegradable too, but unlike that kids' project with corn starch, we can actually use it to carry things. You experienced the tensile strength for yourself, but watch this!” She carefully hefted a 10kg calibration weight into the basin, then placed her hands onto the fluid on either side of it and did something Liv didn't catch, bringing her hands up and together, the fluid forming a sort of bag around the weight, which May then hoisted out of the basin, by the fluid itself, and held up. “As long as there's tension on it, it can hold-”

“Woah, how did you do that?” Liv interrupted.

“It's just one of those prank handshake buzzers,” May explained. “A tiny zap. Electricity can cause the same effect as compression, to make the molecular structure rigid. And then it won't soften until the tension is released” She demonstrated, setting the weight back down into the basin, and showing how the fluid released and flowed down only after she brought her hands low enough, and quit pinching the slightly stretchy... it almost looked like fabric, like this. May continued explaining the effects of her invention, and the ways she predicted it could be used, At Liv's prompting, she gave a more detailed explanation, appropriate for her upcoming thesis defense.

Liv hated to admit, but she could barely follow what May was describing so confidently. She understood the description of the final product, sure, but the process displayed clear genius, and she could only follow it so well because May had always been enthusiastic about sharing her knowledge as she learned.

Liv was so proud of her friend.

She meant to say so, when May finished explaining, but Liv had never been great at sappy moments. She couldn't find the words for a traditional compliment, instead asking, “Are you going to patent that?” It was certainly impressive enough to be worth patenting. Hopefully that question carried her meaning.

“I might,” May answered uncertainly, clearly taken aback by the sudden question. “I haven't thought about it; I've been too busy lately to consider much besides my thesis.”

“You should,” Liv encouraged her with a smile. “It's...” _Fantastic. Amazing. Impressive_. “worth it.”

May smiled back. “Maybe I will.”


	2. Salamanders

May handed back Liv's project proposal with a frown on her face. That didn't make sense, Liv knew she had organized everything correctly – this wasn't her first thesis project – and surely May would understand the long term medical benefits that could be built from this.

“I don't like it,” May stated flatly, though her face had already told Liv that. “You would be torturing those poor salamanders. I'm not sure the ethics committee would even let you start this project.”

“But with the regeneration process constantly ongoing, we could more easily study the cellular effects, and eventually apply our findings to develop human medicine. We could eventually help amputees regrow limbs if we figure this out!”

“ _Constantly_ having their tails being all but torn off is _torture_ ,” May repeated coldly “Always injured, never allowed to recover. Torture. I won't help you with it. Do something else if you want me to even read your next draft.” She shoved the packet roughly into Liv's hands, crumpling a few of the pages, and sat back down at her tiny desk, turning back to her laptop without a further word, not even a glance, at Liv.

Liv wanted to argue. May was standing in the way of progress. They were just salamanders, there was no need to be so squeamish! They could grow their tails back after losing them, without taking permanent damage. That was the point of using salamanders! The _benefits_ if they could reproduce the cellular regeneration in humans...

But the lingering disgust on May's face was like a knife to the heart. Plus, May was stubborn enough to refuse to help, despite her chemistry expertise. Liv had been relying on that. Her favorite of her specialties was physics, especially nuclear physics, which certainly required an understanding of chemistry, but May was even more spectacular at chemistry than Liv was. She had been counting on being able to discuss her project with her friend.

So if she wasn't studying medicine for her biochemistry thesis, what could she do instead?

Half an hour on JSTOR turned up a couple papers on an interesting new theory that consciousness was in the brain's electromagnetic field, created by, but not existing within, the impulses sent between nerve endings. Maybe she could find a way to interact with that field and create an interface to it. She would have to ask her advisor if that was close enough to biochemistry. If it was, her robot arms from last year would be a perfect project to build upon. She was tired of hearing them compared to a video game. Handling dangerous materials safely was serious science! And if she could make the arms more like actual limbs, who was to say that two was the happy maximum like it was when they had to be controlled by joysticks. Why not four, or six, or even eight? However many her brain could adapt to using. Multitasking never hurt a soul.

She made a mental note to email her advisor as soon as she understood the topic enough to commit to it and sat back to read the study properly. If she could make this work, it would be equally revolutionary.


	3. May's Wedding

“May I announce, for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Parker!” the priest announced grandly. Liv hid her wince while the rest of the crowd applauded. Of course May had given up that much more of her identity for him.

Liv had _warned_ her about her mother's fate (decades without a job for her resume, and the job market was fierce these days. Mary Octavius was still struggling to make ends meet, almost five years after Torbert's death). She had warned May about how men always turned nasty after they got what they wanted. She had encouraged her friend to protect herself by calling the engagement off. But May had been as horrified at the suggestion as Liv was at the word “engaged,” and despite her best intentions, she couldn't persuade May otherwise. So today the wedding had gone uninterrupted, as bright, and as full cloying declarations of love as the cheesiest movies

May swept up the aisle on Ben's arm, and her already glowing face lit up further when she spotted Liv in the aisle seat near she'd forced herself into at the last minute. Liv forced herself to smile back as Ben escorted May past her and out the door.

“Liv! You made it!” May grinned, when the “happy couple” made it to the corner of the reception hall where Liv and many of their friends from grad school were sitting.

“I made it,” Liv echoed mildly, forcing another smile.

She couldn't argue now. Ben was right there to get violent when he got offended at Liv's caution. Besides, they were already married, and anything Liv could say would just start another argument like the one she and May had barely recovered from.

“Congratulations,” Liv said instead. It was what she was supposed to say.

May's smile wavered at Liv's flat tone, but a split second later, she was back to beaming. “Thanks! I'm so glad you came.”

May promptly introduced Ben, since Liv had been “busy” every time May had attempted to introduce them before. His smile looked kind, but Liv knew how easily men could fake that. She had realized in high school how much of a threat they all were.

May started rambling about how close they had been in school, how they had shared an apartment and had studied together and about all the cool projects Liv had worked on. Ben continued smiling at her, easily playing the part of caring about his conquest's friends. Liv tried not to feel sick.


	4. Spiderman

Liv watched blankly as the news reported, for the nth time, on May's nephew as the now-dead Spiderman. She'd had her suspicions, based on his mannerisms, and the unmistakeable similarities between his webs and May's invention that she never had patented.

It hurt to have her suspicions confirmed like this. There was no way May _hadn't_ recognized Liv. Even with tinted goggles on, obscuring her face a tiny bit, her robot arms and the corresponding brain interface were unique. But May had never stopped her menace of a vigilante nephew from brutalizing Liv, and worse, wrecking her experiments. Had their friendship meant nothing?

Still, Liv couldn't _not_ send a sympathy card after something as major as Peter's death. She had even managed to send one after Ben's. Liv could reluctantly admit, in his absence, that Ben hadn't been as terrible for May as she had feared he would be. May had been allowed to work at a job she enjoyed, even if it wasn't as prestigious as Alchemax, and if he ever beat her, May was far more capable of hiding it than Liv would have expected.

At the store, she hovered over the sympathy cards. They all rang false. “So sorry for your loss”, but she wasn't sorry to see Spiderman gone. “Feeling your pain”, except she was only relieved that she wouldn't be flung around again, feeling her own pain. All the rest were similarly useless platitudes. Finally she settled on a plain, gray on gray card that just read “Condolences” on the front, and was blank inside

Back at home, with the news reporting the same story yet again, Liv sat over the card trying to decide what to say. She couldn't put any of her bitterness into words. She felt like she had at the wedding except even less in control. Finally, she just scribbled “Peter” in the card and closed it again. She couldn't sincerely express sorrow that he was gone, but May deserved something.

She addressed the matching gray envelope by hand, before sliding the card into it and sealing it away. The purple ink was the only color on the whole thing. It fit in as badly as Liv did into May's life.

She would drop the card in the mail in the morning.


	5. what makes a house a home

Everyone froze at the sound of the gunshot. They all instinctively paused to reassess the room. Every single person in the room, scientists and Spiderpeople, were doing the “missing item” dance looking for the USB drive they had all been fighting over. No one had it unless one of those Spiderpeople was very good at bluffing. She didn't think they were; it must have left the room.

They all rushed, out the front door, looking for Prowler and the missing Spiderperson. In their rush they were doing no worse damage than elbowing each other out of the way. Understanding the situation was temporarily more important than detaining each other.

Fisk was standing between the houses, scowling.

“Prowler was ready to betray us,” he curtly informed his employees.

Well good riddance to hired muscle. This was why Liv only trusted her fellow scientists for anything. Mercenaries were too unreliable. You couldn't trust their motivations.

She didn't see a body. Scorpion commented on the same thing.

“The little Spiderman carried him away,” Fisk answered. It was proof enough of Prowler's betrayal that the Spiderman cared for him in return.

After a quick check in, it was clear that no one had recovered Liv's computer, and none of them had captured the USB drive the Spiderpeople – all now absent – had been so desperately protecting. Fisk scoffed angrily and turned to lead everyone back to Alchemax headquarters. His entire demeanor promised to berate Liv later for dragging them all out on a wild goose chase, but she didn't deserve that. It wasn't like she had hidden her computer and pretended it was stolen.

Liv turned back to May's house, trying to catch a glimpse of any of the hidden Spiderpeople, but May was standing alone in the damaged frame of her front door. Her face didn't contain surprise or despair, merely a tired disappointment.

Liv had been too angry at May's irritated greeting to react when May asked everyone to take the fight outside. The Spiderpeople hadn't acknowledged her request either. Liv was surprised they hadn't respected May enough to do so. They'd clearly sought her help. Surely it was common decency to try to help someone in return after they helped you. This just proved the vigilantes were all mannerless fiends.

Liv followed the others back to the Alchemax building, but May's expression stuck with her. She wasn't even surprised that the Spiderpeople hadn't cared enough to not wreck her house. Liv hadn't said anything, out of spite over that sarcastic greeting.

But Liv could be the bigger person. Their once-friendship still mattered to her, even if May had abandoned it.

After Fisk was done scolding her, and everyone else was busy worrying behind Fisk's back about if he would shoot them too – she didn't understand the concern; _obviously_ he wouldn't as long as they were loyal – she started researching construction companies on her smartphone, tuning everyone out. Even if she wanted to do real work, it wasn't like she had her computer handy to record results on anyway.

That evening, she hired a construction company to go repair May's house, especially the roof. She instructed them not to mention her name - in case May rejected them on principle, simply by association - and to come to her with the final bill. Anything that counted as repairs would be preapproved.

Her Alchemax salary, bolstered as it was with the pay for her “extracurricular” help (like this afternoon's fight), meant she could more than afford to apologize this way even if they decided to interpret her approval... generously.

She also, after some consideration, decided to buy a pre-paid credit card to send as well. She didn't know which store May preferred to replace the kitschy furniture and knicknacks they had destroyed, so it was easier just to let May choose.

She bought a $5 reloadable Siva card at the grocery store, and a generic gift card box, then took it home and used the online portal to top up the card to almost $2000. That should be more than enough to replace cheap furniture and cliché wallpaper with better options, and still hire people to install everything.

Liv wrote May's name on the card-sized tin in generic black marker. She wound up with something that looked like May Rarker. Despite the years she'd had to learn, she still found herself trying to address things to May Reilly. Writing in fountain pen helped cover up the error, because the ink would drag and tie the letters together anyway, but the error was painfully obvious in marker. Frowning, she added lines to connect all the letters to each other. It didn't look natural at all. But she didn't keep acetone around, not even as nail polish remover, so she couldn't erase the “permanent” marker to try again. It would have to do.

Now she just had to decide if she was mailing the card, delivering it to May's mailbox directly, or sending it with the construction crew.


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for insensitive use of the word 'cripple'

Liv's metal arms instinctively came up to protect her from the stray train that interrupted her argument with the black-clad Spiderman. They took the brunt of the impact before she had even consciously noticed the train coming. They protected her again when the train would have slammed her against the wall of the collider. She wound up with her metal arms pinned between the train and the wall, and her comparatively fragile human body off to the side, bruised and sore, though no worse than normal when Spiderman was involved. Considering only living beings seemed to remain after the collider shut down, the train should disappear soon enough. In the meantime, she kept a wary eye out for further hazards, and started considering all the repair work she would need to do. She could feel the damage in the arms almost like pain. That probably wasn't a good sign, considering how resilient she had designed them to be.

Eventually, the collider's ever-present hum changed in frequency. Liv could just make out a spiderperson at the nearly-inaccessible (by design) internal control panel. She scowled and shouted at him, but he was too far away to hear. Pity. That one was lacking in confidence, making him easier to distract and intimidate. The collider's beam was changing colors along with its hum, and each time it did so, another Spiderperson was disappearing into it. At least after they wrecked everything, they were simply leaving, not wrecking it further.

When there was only one Spiderman left, the same one at the control panel, he shut down the collider, and the chaos and bright colors faded. As predicted, the train retracted too, leaving Liv and her mangled metal arms free to get up. She just barely caught a glimpse of him leaving. She wasn't in any shape to chase right now, but it wouldn't matter. He was out of his own dimension and she predicted he would unravel within a week or so. Her life would no longer be plagued by Spiderman nor any other Spiderpeople. She could afford to let him go for now.

At a glance, she only saw superficial damage to the collider, mostly to the protective shielding. That shouldn't be too hard to fix. Fisk would be angry that his family had reacted so badly to him, but that wasn't Liv's problem, and right now her collider was damaged enough that she had better standing to push back if he demanded another try. Now she could enforce the necessary downtime to minimize the risk of creating a black hole under the city. Sure, if things went that badly wrong, she wouldn't be aware enough to regret it, but she still would rather the earth continue to exist so she could continue to live and do research on it.

She carefully retracted her arms, as much as they would safely fold without sparking, and made her way carefully out of the collider and back into the main Alchemax building.

In her office, she carefully removed the backpack-style brace that held her metal arms against her body, and the interface against her neck. The phantom pains struck again, harsher now that she wasn't getting any proper feedback from her arms.

Liv had made necessary repairs on her arms before, but she hadn't had to take them off to make such intense repairs in a long while. It made her think of amputees, and of salamanders. May hated her now anyway. Perhaps she should've stuck with her salamander project, hoping to heal amputees rather than making herself feel like one when she got too used to her own invention.

The following Monday, Liv hadn't yet gone home. She couldn't stomach the thought of leaving her arms unattended overnight, but the circuitry was open and she wasn't about to move them off of the grounded work table. Repairs were slow going with only two hands instead of six. She could still barely comprehend how she had ever functioned with only two arms. Fortunately, repairs were almost done. She wouldn't be crippled much longer.

Cynthia, the secretary, knocked on the frame of her open office door.

Liv glanced up in silent acknowledgement. Cynthia worked hard to handle all the less important things to make sure the scientists only had to worry about science. She looked back down at her arms, where her multimeter was confirming that a portion of the circuit had the expected resistance.

“Mail for you, Doctor O.,” Cynthia explained, used to Liv's tendency to be distracted by her current project. She held up a gray envelope. Liv nodded towards her desk and turned her full attention back to her arms. Cynthia left the envelope on her desk, in front of the new monitor, before retreating back to whatever her usual duties were.

When Liv could afford to stop for a moment, she set her arms down gently, and her tools to the side, to investigate the envelope. It was an oddly familiar dark gray, addressed to her at work, with May Parker's return address in the corner. Was this just to gloat? She slid her thumb under the fold of the envelope, easily tearing through the glue.

Inside was a simple gray-on-gray Condolences card, the same design she had sent May last week. She flipped it open. A photo fell out of the card. On the card itself was the word “Collider,” and nothing else. The photo appeared to be construction workers on the roof of May's house.

She turned the card over, but there was nothing else written on the back.

May preferred things much more flowery. It couldn't be coincidence that she had picked out the same card Liv had sent her. Maybe this was her way of accepting Liv's apology?

Liv felt a tiny smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.She would press her luck and call after she left work. Perhaps May would even pick up.


End file.
